


a little white light in a sea gone black

by brookethenerd



Category: 6 Underground (2019)
Genre: Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:55:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22798930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookethenerd/pseuds/brookethenerd
Summary: The reader asks Billy the same question One asked Two & Three regarding their relationship
Relationships: Four | Billy (6 Underground)/Reader
Kudos: 32





	a little white light in a sea gone black

There is no room for intimacy underground, not as far as One is concerned. If he had it his way, the team would spend its free time in isolated cubes, with no interaction among you until it was time for a mission. In his eyes, closeness is synonymous with danger. And as extreme as it might be, the rule that not only forbade connections to your former lives but also keeps you from living full ones, there is safety in isolation. Every member of the team knows that; if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be there.

The reality of the situation is that ghosts _are_ invisible, but you’re not ghosts, not wholly, not entirely. You may have clipped every string you had, but that doesn’t mean new ones don’t jump to your skin. To be alive is to have connections; connections with the power to rip you back down to the ground.

That’s why you use numbers. Why you learn nothing of the past and only the relevant. Why, when one team member falls, another number takes its place.

But it’s hard to be a ghost. It’s hard to care as little for other people as ghosts should. It’s hard to let go of the instinct toward companionship.

_Are you fucking or making love?_

The team is in Berlin for a mission the next morning, split into hotel rooms throughout the floor. Luckily, One’s demise didn’t burn all his bridges, and though you had no idea where the money came from, you were grateful for your own room.

Not that you plan on sleeping in it. Sometime after eleven, when the grandparents of the team have inevitably fallen asleep - One, Seven, probably Three, if Two isn’t _literally_ screwing with him - you slip out into the quiet hallway, padding down the carpet in socked feet, a big hoodie falling halfway down your thighs. The black eye given - on accident, according to Two - during training throbs painfully, but it’s nowhere near the worst injury you’ve sported.

You knock on the door, barely hitting twice before it swings open, revealing a sleepy, but still awake, Four. He’s wearing a white tee and sweats, and when he lifts his arm to rake a hand through his hair, the edge of the fabric rides up to expose a sliver of hardened stomach.

“Room service,” you say, quirking a brow. Four grins, stepping out of the way to let you in.

“You seen these mini-bars? Shit is absolutely bonkers,” he says, gesturing to a pile of candy wrappers and a collection of mini bottles on the table.

“The mini-bars One _explicitly_ told us _not_ to fuck with?”

Four flashes you a mischievous grin, uncapping a tiny bottle of Jager, sniffing it and crinkling his nose. “That’s the one,” he says. “Figure the old hag can shoulder the bill. Big billionaire he is, and all.” You roll your eyes and push further into the room, shoving aside the clothes laid out on Four’s bed, letting them fall to the floor in a heap, knowing it’ll irk him.

He shoots you a patronizing look, but ignores the clothes, flopping onto the bed beside you.

“Ex-billionaire,” you say. Four shrugs and reaches out, an arm slipping around your waist, and he tugs you flush against him. He smells of cheap hotel shampoo and aftershave, hair still wet from a shower, little droplets peppering your skin when he moves.

“Lot of talk about One,” he says. “Maybe you should go knock on his door.”

“Jealous, eh?”

He scoffs. “Of that tosser? Not bloody likely.”

“Tell that,” you say, hands coming up to settle on his cheeks, “to your blush.”

“Oh, piss off,” he says, craning away. You laugh, pulling him back to you, dropping a kiss to the scar beneath his eye.

“You’re cute when you’re jealous,” you tease.

“Cute?” He grumbles. You sit up and swing a leg over him, straddling his lap. He sits up, resting against the headboard, and you let your hands settle against his chest, his heart thrumming beneath your fingers. “M’not cute.”

“You’re _adorable_ ,” you say. “Absolutely _precious_.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game, love,” he says, eyes flashing wild. He takes you by the shoulders, lifting you up and pressing you down into the mattress, propped up on his elbows above you.

“You’re even more adorable when you scrunch your face up like that,” you say, snaking a hand up to tap him on the nose.

“And you’re a tease, darling.”

You grin, reaching your hands up to wind your fingers in his hair, earning a soft noise from the back of his throat.

“I wanted to ask you something, _Four_ ,” you say. He quirks a brow.

“And what might that be, E _ight_?”

One of your hands slips down to his chest, fingers playing with the collar of his shirt, each brush of your fingers making him inhale sharply. You like him like this; eyes blown, lips curled up in a mischievous smile, body pressing into yours. You’d never imagined you’d have to die to find someone like him, to stay dead to keep him.

Not that he was yours, not that he was allowed to be. One had made the rules very clear when he’d asked Two and Three the question in Vegas: are you fucking or making love?

There was a difference: one involved little, the other involved the heart. And where the heart was concerned, matters became complicated. You couldn’t blame One for the rule, nor did you disagree, despite the circumstances.

Caring for people has always been dangerous, but now, it’s practically a death sentence. One that you’re far too willing to sign. But that doesn’t mean Billy - Four, you remind yourself - is. That doesn’t mean he’s in this for the same reason you are.

“What is it that we’re doing?” You ask. “Fucking, or making love?”

Billy sits up, lips pulling thin, clearly expecting anything but that to come out of your mouth. He sits back on the bed, light brows furrowed, meeting your gaze through feathered lashes.

“Does it matter?”

You scoff. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“ _Why_?”

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging a shoulder. “Why?”

“Because…one is allowed. The other …isn’t.”

“Since when have any of us cared what’s allowed?”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

He makes a face and rakes a hand through his hair. It wasn’t necessarily fair of you to drop it on him like that, but it isn’t as if any of you are in the business of fairness. Ghosts don’t get that luxury.

After a pause, he lets out a breath and lifts his eyes to yours.

“It’s not just fuckin’,” he says. “Making love is some pansy shit, but…” Though you didn’t think it possible, he looks almost shy, averting his gaze and mussing up his hair even further. “But it’s not just fucking.”

“Not for me either,” you say. His lips quirk up in a grin.

“One’ll be thrilled. The guy’s matchmaking powers are unmatched.”

“I don’t know if _thrilled_ is the word…”

You shift so that you’re sitting cross-legged between his spread legs, leaning forward to tip your forehead against his.

“Tell me your name,” you whisper, and the rest of the question is unspoken: _your full name_.

It’s a test, in a way. There is power in a name, far more power in the name of a ghost. The whole point of the number system is to keep each other’s names out of your mouths, to keep them safe in the darkness. But you’re asking him to give it to you, asking him to trust you to keep it safe.

He pauses, tracing shapes into your thigh with his pointer finger, and says, “William Harrison Hughes,” without looking up. Only once he’s finished does he lift his gaze to yours and say, “But everyone calls me Billy.”

“ _William Harrison Hughes_ ,” you say, testing the name out on your tongue, deciding you like the weight of it. It doesn’t matter what you call him, or what he’s known as - he’ll always be yours, regardless of what he’s referred to as.

“Awful, innit?”

You laugh, shaking your head.

“It’s not the best. You look more like a Billy than a William.”

“What about a four?”

You tilt your head, inspecting him, lips quirking up.

“You look like _you_ ,” you say. “I’d recognize you anywhere, no matter what you’re called.”

“Even if it’s some rubbish name?”

“Even then,” you say. You purse your lips. “Though, I might have to draw the line if you ever show up as an Edgar or an Archibald.”

Billy’s lips curl up in a smug grin. “You’d go mental over me as an Archibald.”

“Nope,” you say. “Actually, I would not.”

He catches your mouth in another kiss, this one more gentle, languid, all cautious touches and careful movements.

Though you wouldn’t say you have a preference - kissing Billy _is_ kissing Billy - if you did, it would be moments like these. Moments where you get to see the part of him no one else does, the part that is patient and careful and quiet. His entropy is often chaotic, loud and buzzing with life, but every so often, he calms, softens, turns into the smiley, dopey boy in front of you. Not the ghost, or the Sky Walker, or Four, but just as himself. At peace with the moment he’s in.

“So, since we’re not just fucking,” he says, giving you a lopsided grin, “does that mean we keep this shit on the DL?”

“Unless we want what would probably be the sex talk from hell from One, yes.”

Billy smiles, dropping a kiss to your nose before moving down the line of your jaw, onto your neck, skin alight everywhere he touches.

“Think you can keep a secret?” He asks, voice low, making your stomach twist when his nose brushes the jut of skin beneath your jaw.

“Better than you,” you reply, tugging him back up to meet your lips. It’s a little hard to kiss with all his smiling, but you manage to make it work.

“That sounds like a challenge, love,” he murmurs against your mouth. You grin, stomach flopping.

“And if it is?”

He pulls back, eyes flashing with excitement and something so affectionate it makes your chest ache, though not unpleasantly.

“Then I accept,” he says. You smile, and pull him back to you.


End file.
